On Friday 23 February, European Council President Donald Tusk called for a ceasefire in and humanitarian access to Eastern Ghouta, Syria, which has been under constant bombing for several days by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“The Assad regime is brutally attacking innocent men, women and children. Its backers, Russia and Iran, are allowing this to happen. We urge them to stop this violence”, Tusk stressed after the informal summit meeting. “The EU calls for an immediate ceasefire, and for providing urgent humanitarian access to, and protection of, civilians”, he added. On Friday, for the sixth day running, aircraft of the Syrian regime bombarded the rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta. Since Sunday, air raids and artillery fire have already left 462 civilians dead, of whom 103 are children.
After the summit, several European leaders also called for a ceasefire. “The most important thing for everyone, including for Russia (...) is to put an end to all this, to have a ceasefire. That must be the most crucial thing right now”, said Stefan Löfven of Sweden. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, put in: “We have called for a truce. A complete ceasefire is tricky (as there are other theatres of operation where the war is continuing). We have focused our efforts on Eastern Ghouta”.
These comments echo a statement by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, published a little earlier in the day on behalf of the EU28. In that statement, she says the “massacre in Eastern Ghouta must stop now”. “The European Union is running out of words to describe the horror being experienced by the people of Eastern Ghouta. Hundreds of civilians, women, children are targeted deliberately and relentlessly. They are the real, innocent victims of this war”, Mogherini added in terms rarely used by European diplomacy.
The EU28 therefore call “on all parties to the conflict, as well as the guarantors of the four de-escalation areas, to take all necessary measures to ensure an immediate ceasefire, the protection of the Syrian people by respecting international humanitarian law, and urgent humanitarian access”, the High Representative states in her appeal, going on to add that the Syrian regime was to “immediately” stop targeting its own people and fulfil its primary responsibility to protect them. “The international community should unite to stop this human suffering”, she went on to say, before warning that “it is the responsibility of all to prevent further loss of lives, to stop the violence”.
At the time of going to press, the United Nations Security Council was meeting to negotiate a resolution calling for a 30-day truce and allow the arrival of humanitarian aid. The EU28 declaration calls, moreover, on the international community to support that resolution, the fate of which is largely in Russia’s hands, which has power of veto at the UN Security Council. According to one French diplomatic source, French President Emmanuel Macron called, at the beginning of the informal summit’s work, for all heads of state and government to “bring their influence to bear to obtain” adoption of the resolution. In parallel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Macron sent a joint letter to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, calling on him to support the resolution. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with the editorial staff)